Tag: Free Speech

Speaking at Georgetown University on Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited Daily WireEditor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro’s controversial appearance at the University of California, Berkeley on September 14 as a prime example of how the Left attempts to shut down free speech in America.

Sessions began the segment of his speech by referring to the leftist, violent group Antifa as “Orwellian-named”:

The Orwellian-named antifascist protestors have successfully shut down numerous campus speaker events in recent months with violent riots. Berkeley was reportedly forced to spend $600,000 and have an overwhelming police presence to simply prove that the mob was not in control of their campus, the “home of free speech.” In advance, the school offered counseling, in advance of this speech they offered counseling to any students or faculty whose sense of safety or belonging was threatened by a speech from Ben Shapiro, a 33-year-old Harvard-trained lawyer, who has frequently been targeted by anti-Semites for his Jewish faith and who vigorously condemns hate speech from the Left or the Right.

Well, in the end, Mr. Shapiro spoke to a packed house, and to my knowledge, no one fainted; no one was unsafe; no one needed counseling.

“I hope,” Sessions joked.

He continued, “Yet after this small victory for free speech, a student speaking to a reporter said, in reaction, ‘I don’t think Berkeley should host any controversial speakers on either side.’ That, perhaps, would be the worst lesson to draw from that episode, I firmly believe.”

A statement signed by 30 faculty members of Georgetown University protesting Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ speech on campus Tuesday contained multiple falsehoods.

Sessions spoke at Georgetown’s law school about free speech Tuesday, and the statement was released prior to his speech as an act of protest.

“We acknowledge our colleague’s right to invite Attorney General Sessions to speak on campus,” the letter, signed mostly by law school faculty, stated. “However, we, the undersigned, condemn the hypocrisy of Attorney General Sessions speaking about free speech.”

The letter went on to say, “Sessions’ own office is currently prosecuting Desiree Fairooz for unlawful conduct; her alleged crime is laughing for a few seconds during Sessions’ Senate confirmation hearings last January and then loudly protesting her unlawful arrest.”

However, the office prosecuting Desiree Fairooz is the U.S. Attorney for the District of Colombia, which was led at the time by Channing Phillips, an Obama appointee. Read more of the errors in the Georgetown Law Profs. statement at DailyCaller

In the United States there is a principle of “innocent until proven guilty” and any attempt to assign guilt outside of the legal system is little more than digital vigilantism.

Google, ProPublica and liberals groups to build a national hate crime database. ProPublica is funded by liberals and George Soros.

One of the groups helping to build a national hate crime database is The Southern Poverty Law Center. SPLC put Dr. Ben Carson on its “extremist” list. That list includes Brigitte Gabriel, Pamela Geller, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer (jihad watch).

Apple raising money for SPLC hate group on iTunes.

Under the guise of rooting out “hate,” the search engine company is launching “a new machine learning tool to help journalists covering hate news leverage this data in their reporting,” Google said in a blogpost.

Not surprisingly, Google has partnered with liberal groups like ProPublica, BuzzFeed News, and the Southern Poverty Law Center with the goal of making data about “hate events” more accessible to journalists. Other “news” sites deemed worthy of judging content across the internet include Buzzfeed, The Root, The New York Times, Univision, Meedan (whatever that is), and, of course, the The Advocate (which today features “100 Photos of Beautiful Men in the P-Town Sunset” — don’t miss it!)….

The entire effort is spearheaded by ProPublica, which PJMedia noted “poses as a middle-of-the-road non-profit journalistic operation, but in reality, it’s funded by a stable of uber-liberal donors, including George Soros‘s Open Society Foundations and Herb and Marion Sandler, billionaire former mortgage bankers whose Golden West Financial Corp. allegedly targeted subprime borrowers with ‘pick-a-pay’ mortgages that led to toxic assets that were blamed for the collapse of Wachovia.” Read full article at DailyWire

“The Framers of the Constitution knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny.”
-Hugo Black

The drafters of Senate Resolution 118 and House Resolution 257, are two Muslim organizations,

Current Law

The law already prohibits violence and threats of violence, and law enforcement authorities are supposed to prosecute those — intimidation, destruction, damage, vandalism, simple and aggravated assault. What “hate crimes” are not already covered by the law?

On April 4, 2017, the US Senate passed Senate Resolution 118, “Condemning hate crime and any other form of racism, religious or ethnic bias, discrimination, incitement to violence, or animus targeting a minority in the United States”. The resolution was drafted by a Muslim organization, EmgageUSA (formerly EmergeUSA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). On April 6, 2017, EmgageUSA wrote the following on their Facebook page:

“Thanks to the hard work of Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Senator Susan Collins and Senator Kamala Harris we have achieved the approval of Senate Resolution 118, an anti-hate crimes bill drafted by Emerge-USA. It is days like this that Americans are reminded of this country’s founding principles: equal opportunity, freedom, justice. We are proud to help support the protection of these rights #amoreperfectunion #theamericandream”.

Senate Resolution 118 calls on

“…Federal law enforcement officials, working with State and local officials… to expeditiously investigate all credible reports of hate crimes and incidents and threats against minorities in the United States and to hold the perpetrators of those crimes, incidents, or threats accountable and bring the perpetrators to justice; encourages the Department of Justice and other Federal agencies to work to improve the reporting of hate crimes; and… encourages the development of an interagency task force led by the Attorney General to collaborate on the development of effective strategies and efforts to detect and deter hate crime in order to protect minority communities…”

House Resolution H.Res. 257

On April 6, almost the exact same text was introduced as House Resolution H.Res. 257, “Condemning hate crime and any other form of racism, religious or ethnic bias, discrimination, incitement to violence, or animus targeting a minority in the United States”. A House Resolution can be reintroduced as legislation.

H.Res. 257 urges

“…the development of an interagency task force led by the Attorney General and bringing together the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Education, the Department of State, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to collaborate on the development of effective strategies and efforts to detect and deter hate crime in order to protect minority communities”. The House Resolution was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary on April 6 and from there it was referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations on April 21.

Americans should be concerned about these resolutions, especially the part of the House Resolution, which urges the establishment of an “interagency task force led by the Attorney General … on the development of effective strategies and efforts to detect and deter hate crime in order to protect minority communities.”

What is a hate crime in this context? The law already prohibits violence and threats of violence, and law enforcement authorities are supposed to prosecute those — intimidation, destruction, damage, vandalism, simple and aggravated assault. What do “strategies and efforts to detect and deter hate crime” entail, and again, what “hate crimes” are not already covered by the law? In other words, why would the House of Representatives find it necessary to make such redundant statements, if not in order to redefine the concept of a hate crime? Perhaps by including “hate speech“?

The US has been in a similar situation before. In December 2015, House Resolution H.Res. 569 “Condemning violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States” was introduced. That resolution never went any farther, but it was problematic: it favored Muslims over everyone else. The current resolution includes most of the major ethnic and religious minorities in the United States, so it will have a far better chance of passing, as it will more easily fool Representatives into thinking that the contents of the resolution are harmless.

The drafters of Senate Resolution 118 and House Resolution 257, are two Muslim organizations, EmgageUSA (formerly known as EmergeUSA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council. This is what EmgageUSA published on its website on April 6, 2017:

“We are excited to report that EmergeUSA and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) worked with Senator Kamala Harris to introduce Senate Resolution #118, which was passed unanimously today. The historic resolution is the first of its kind to condemn hate crimes and other forms of racism. The hate crimes extend beyond targeting just Muslim and Jewish Americans to also include religious minorities such as Hindu and Sikh Americans… EmergeUSA is committed to engaging, and empowering the Muslim American community via the political process by working towards making federal and state legislation and policies more equitable for the Muslim American community”.